On the day the grueling cross-examination process wrapped up, the Oscar Pistorius trial in South Africa‘s Pretoria court Tuesday hit another watermark of uncomfortable tension, as the paralympian read aloud a Valentine’s Day card girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp gave him hours before he would fatally gun her down.

“Roses are red, violets are blue,” Pistorius read from the card, “I think today is a good day to tell you that I love you.”

Steenkamp “was locked into the bathroom, and you armed yourself with the sole purpose of shooting and killing her and that’s what you did,” the bulldog attorney said. “Afterwards, indeed, you were overcome by what you’d done, that is true.

In his final chance to address Judge Thokozile Masipa, Pistorius said he was “terrified,” “scared” and fearful for his life in the incident, mistakenly believing burglars had broken into his domicile; and that he fired off his gun “before [he] could think.

“I was thinking about what could happen to me, to Reeva,” he said. “I was just extremely fearful.”